Offensive Operations

Chapter 7

7

“Right now, we have to take care of ourselves. Anyone have any ideas on who's actually doing this?" Cody said. “Hey, does this office have a television, we could use one,” Blake said, looking around the place realizing he’d never been in here before.

Cody pushed a button on his desk and the wall to their left opened up revealing a large television and turned on. “I need one of these,” Wyatt said as he looked at it. Josh tried to call Blackfire on his phone, it didn’t even ring.

“No word from Heath or anyone, no one is even picking up on the other end. I wonder if whoever did this manage to take them out too?” Josh asked, no one had an answer as the news channel was reporting a live event. This event took all of their attention at once.

The cameras were recording five very familiar armored soldiers walking down a street in New York City. The squad was looking at themselves. One was white, smooth armor who looked like he was the leader. Two of them were in red armor, one was slender, the other was bulky. Another was in dark green armor and the last one wore silver. None of the squad could determine any special details about them right now, but the color scheme didn’t appear very inspired.

"Well, it finally happened. Evil versions of us walking down the street, I suppose it could be worse, it could be clones, what if they are clones?" Wyatt asked in amazement and shock.

“They aren’t clones, Wyatt, they are obviously doppelgangers,” Dustin answered him back quickly. “Just saying they could be clones is all,” Wyatt said back to him.

The scene wasn't finished. Behind them, being dragged slowly along by a sixth armored figure holding a chain that connected to his victim’s neck. It was Tony. His armor was missing and his clothes were covered in blood and torn but due to his healing factor he was in one piece and alive.

"Damn, they have him too. Well, I guess we can assume he didn't just ride off into the sunset like we thought," Josh said. Like most retired Squad members, they had just assumed after the mission was done he had just gone home, no one was fond of goodbyes.

They had no idea that he might have actually been beaten; it was a shocking thing to consider and now this turned into a rescue mission, too. There was no way they were going to let this stand.

"Yeah we need to stop this but If we reveal ourselves as the Squad chances are everyone will see us both as the enemy. If we do nothing lots of people are going to die. If these guys are even half as good as we are the ordinary army won't stand much of a chance," Cody said mostly to himself, overthinking this situation.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think a well trained army could have a pretty good chance at taking us down. Jake’s army was a bunch of desperate people who knew how to point and shoot, not trained fighters. I wouldn’t overestimate us that much,” Dustin replied. Cody ignored him, even if he was right.

The scene changed then as the camera focused in on a sixth black armored figure.

"Hello, I am the leader of the Delta Squad. I only have one demand. I want to speak directly to the President. That's it. Nothing else. If he does not reply in an hour people begin to die on a massive scale. I like to keep things to the point, so what do you say Mister President?" he asked with too much confidence and as if he knew he was going to get what he wanted and knew that no one would risk trying to take them down to risk the threat, whatever it might be.

The five of them watched the demand. Wyatt had a shiver go down his spine. There was no mistaking that voice anywhere. The scene changed back to the news caster in an instant.

"This message just came in seconds ago. The terrorist threat is unknown at the time but the demand is simple. The whole country waits to see what the new President will do. The timer is counting down to, well, something bad," he said into the screen, clearly losing his collective cool live on camera. After a full year of reporting on various beginnings of the end, the rate anchors broke down on live television was increasing at an alarming rate.

"Well, looks like our course of action is decided," Dustin said as he looked towards the door. "Yeah. We get the hell out of dodge and figure out what it is we need to do next," Wyatt said as he was getting ready to leave.

"There is no way we bend to this or any other maniac who comes out of the woodwork. Let’s be on the first plane out," Wyatt added. It was a good plan. But this time somebody knew about the Squad well enough to become them, Cody was sure that this threat was not an idle one.

"No. We, I can't run from this. I have to go meet this head on. The rest of you go to the island and get ready for battle and find out what the hell is going on with them. We'll see how this goes and move on from there," Cody said the opposite of what they wanted to do.

They didn't like this plan at all, but running never solved anything.

Cody picked up the phone and pushed a button.

“Tell them I am on my way. I’ll be there as fast as I can get there,” he said into it.

“No arguments. It’s not worth the risk. I’ll be there soon. Tell them that I’ve made an executive decision in the matter,” he said and hung the phone up. “Alright. Let’s see what happens next,” he said to his friends and stood up.

“I still think they are clones,” Wyatt said looking at them on the screen. “If you say they are clones one more time and I am punching you,” Josh said to him with a glare Wyatt could feel.

“Fine, Cody you do your thing and I guess we’ll find a boat,” Blake said and couldn’t believe what he was saying, it’d been years since they all had to take a civilian boat to the Island. Wyatt on the other hand did this trip much more recently. Cody walked over to the left wall and opened a secret door. “Get out this way, I know this place is going to be flooded with people soon. I can’t keep them out forever,” Cody said to them.

Knowing his military people were extremely anxious to talk to him, he was just making them wait because he could. It was irresponsible, but he didn’t care.

“So, where in the world are we going to find a boat?” Dustin asked as they took the secret passage out of the oval office. “Find, no, we’ll just take the one we want. National emergency makes it okay to take what we want,” Josh replied to him.

“You are going to feel bad about stealing a boat later on, you know you will,” Dustin said back to him.

“Maybe, but if all this goes the way it’s looking I think the last thing any of us will feel bad about is taking a boat so will you to shut up about it already?” Wyatt asked as they came to a door, he opened it and it opened into an empty building that appeared just be one room. It didn’t feel like they were walking very long through the strange hallway.

“Ah, secret passages, you’ll never know just where they will lead,” Blake said, rather impressed that something like this could exist at all and no one noticed it. The door opened up to a city street. Despite the crisis. People were still walking around as If nothing was happening in the outside world, it was actually a little hard for them to believe. They thought there would be a little more panic being so close to the disaster.

“Let’s get out of here,” Wyatt said, annoyed with this whole situation. He didn’t like the Syndicate or how it worked but this radio silence was making him nervous. They all felt the same way.

Even if they were in suits, in this city and this part of town they fit right in. No one noticed them as they moved through the crowds.

“Does anyone know just how far away the ocean is from here, because I don’t want to walk like thirty miles or something before we figure it out,” Josh said to them, but none of them knew just how far away it was. “If it turns out to be far away we’ll just steal a car too. Relax, we got this taken care of.” Wyatt said, Dustin didn’t like that idea either.

Cody left the oval office and was immediately surrounded by everyone he was keeping out of the room. In the flurry of activity, he only got one general idea from all the voices. They wanted him to run, hide. The panic was setting in. He wasn’t going to have any part of it.

“Everyone shut up for a minute,” Cody said and everyone did as he said in a few moments. “This madman blew up the statue, and no one saw him coming. He says he has a threat, I believe him, and so I will meet this one in person to see what he has to say. Now is not the time to be afraid.” Cody said to a very skeptical crowd of various officials.

“Now, let’s get to the city before they start blowing stuff up. I want everyone to be on full alert. Be ready for anything,” Cody said to them all and sincerely hoped that they didn’t need to be told this at this point.

“Sir, the helicopter is ready,” Someone said, Cody didn’t see who it was.

“Good, put Air Force One in the air too, just in case it’s some kind of a trap. Put it on the same route and make sure that it appears on I am on it,” Cody said as he and the others began to walk forward. Cody didn’t know what to expect from this, he didn’t like this feeling either.

Soon he found himself on a helicopter and in the air. “Sir, do you think it’s true. Is it really the Delta Squad?” A man in a suit asked him.

“I guess it is. But you know, I always thought they were the good guys,” Cody replied to him as he looked at the ground beneath them passed by. Silence then was their only company for the rest of the trip.

Cody had no idea what he was going to say to their old enemy when he got there.

The trip was impossibly short. Time seemed an illusion as Cody was distracted by his thoughts. The thoughts were broken as the decent began.

“Well, here we go,” Cody said as he tried to get a glimpse of the invaders, but they were too far away from anything. The helicopter landed, the door opened. Cody got out into a crowd of people. He hated crowds, reporters and all the rest of them.

“I will go to meet them, now,” Cody said to them and everyone quieted down. “Don’t you even want a vest or anything, sir?” another asked him. “They blew up the national monument. I don’t think a vest is going to help me or anyone else. Show me the way,” Cody said, not worried about being killed.

He knew that this man would have more planned than a simple assassination attempt. No. There was something bigger at in the works here but no one knew what it was. Everyone was in the dark. America was taken by surprise.

“Are you ready for this?” A woman in a military uniform said, surprising him. She seemed to melt out of the crowd and stand by his side. “Yep,” he replied to her. “Follow me, at the first sign of trouble we have plenty of safeguards in place,” she said to him with a half smile. Cody nodded, he didn’t expect anything less, but on the other hand wasn’t sure what how safe he could be in a situation like this.

The two of them walked together for a time, all eyes and cameras followed the two of them as they came to the street.

“Thanks for the escort; this is where you get off,” he said as he turned and to look at her. “Anytime,” she said to him and melted back into the crowd once more.

“Right then, let’s get this over with,” he said to himself as he walked towards the middle of the street to meet the six invaders on their terms.